I work as a professional theatre technician. My multi-tool is my life, literally, and it gets used and abused on a daily basis.
I've had a Leatherman Wave since they first came out (I was told by the guy at the store that I was the first person to buy one) and have NEVER had a problem with it. It's not super-heavy-duty. You can't use the knife-blade as a chisel. You can't exert > 40 or 50 lbs of torque pressure on the tool. Having said that, if you need a specialized tool, then you need a specialized tool. Don't try and do it with a multi-tool.
...You're talking about burying the EXTERIOR of the building, not filling the interior volume.
A bit of basic math to calculate the volume required (keep in mind I'm a poli-sci major, not a math geek):
The minimum dimensions you'll be dealing with for a "a small single-story building" would be about 60' x 60' x 15' which gives you an exterior WALL AREA of 54 000 square feet. This is NOT including the roof. Just the exterior WALLS of the building, I'll get to the roof in a second.
For the sake of simplicity, and my own poor math skills, we'll assume your friend has a FLAT roof. That's another 3 600 square feet.
You're now dealing with 57 600 square feet of exterior area to cover with popcorn. Assuming that you want to be able to provide at least 6" of popcorn on top of the whole house and assuming you will have a way to KEEP the popcorn IN PLACE (i.e. not just pile it up) you're looking at 57 600' x 0.5' for a total of 28 800 CUBIC FEET of popcorn.
If you are EXTREMELY liberal in your calculations you can assume that about two bags of microwave popcorn will create one cubic foot of the stuff. Thus, 57 600 bags of microwave popcorn. I'm not quite sure how to calculate how much bulk popcorn you'd need, so I've put it in microwave bag terms to give you a rough idea.
If you actually need to PILE the popcorn up around the walls I suspect it would be reasonable to double this number for an approximate volume requirement. 57 600 CUBIC feet, or 115 200 BAGS of of popcorn is a FUCKING LOT of popcorn...
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Now, if you were talking about FILLING his house with popcorn...
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We'll assume a basic 1-bedroom single-story residence with kitchen, bathroom, living room, dining room, hallways, NOT including closets, and NOT including garage.
The layout of the house could DRASTICALLY affect the overall volume, so these are excessively rough estimates.
Bedroom: 20' x 20' Kitchen: 20' x 20' Living Room: 20' x 20' Dining Room: 20' x 20' Bathroom: 15' x 10' Hallways: 35' x 5'
All Ceilings at 9'
(4)3600 + 1350 + 1575 = 17 325 cubic feet inside the house. Refer to my previous calculations regarding microwave bags / volume and you'll come to about 35 650 BAGS of microwave popcorn to accomplish this.
After all this, I seriously doubt you'll be able to do this on the kind of budget that I'd imagine you're on. Perhaps going for just your friend's bedroom / car / home-office would be a more reasonable thing to try?
Y'know, the funniest thing is that THAT is the quote that I originally included when I submitted the story, but it got changed by the slashdot gods... to see it in the first post just cracks me up:)
My only question about these things is whether or not I'm able to strap one to the roof of my Chevy Impala? I mean, it's not a JATO unit, but it would still be one hell of a ride before I hit that canyon wall:)
Just a thought, but couldn't you get around the whole "trading" problem by simply making the keys integral to school.
I'm a third year uni. student. My school (The University of Victoria) has a regional bus pass encoded onto student cards as part of a deal struck with the local transit authority...
Despite the fact that I have a PILE of friends who would all gladly pay $100 for my student card to get the cheap bus pass, the damn thing is indespensible to me, so I take good care of it. Furthermore, if I ever go in to get a "lost" card replaced, they disable my old one on a central server before giving me a new one. There's only *EVER* one "real" student card for me floating around, and it *HAS* to be in *MY* posession for simple logistical reasons. I'm screwed without it.
Do the same for kids. Make their tokens integral somehow. (Part of the lunch program, part of class attendance, or SOMETHING...) then, if the kids lose them, you just make sure that the old tokens are remotely disabled before a new one is issued...
The article fails to mention how many frames per second (if that's the appropriate term) this technology would deliver... even 10x10 pixels would be helpful if delivered at 30 - 40 FPS, but almost worse than useless if delivered at 2 FPS...
Doubtful, I'm no expert, but i believe that more than just a jamming signal would be required to detonate a bomb...... you would probably need the signal to carry some sort of data as well...
Slashdot Mirror
I work as a professional theatre technician. My multi-tool is my life, literally, and it gets used and abused on a daily basis.
I've had a Leatherman Wave since they first came out (I was told by the guy at the store that I was the first person to buy one) and have NEVER had a problem with it. It's not super-heavy-duty. You can't use the knife-blade as a chisel. You can't exert > 40 or 50 lbs of torque pressure on the tool. Having said that, if you need a specialized tool, then you need a specialized tool. Don't try and do it with a multi-tool.
The wave get's my vote, hands down.
...You're talking about burying the EXTERIOR of the building, not filling the interior volume.
A bit of basic math to calculate the volume required (keep in mind I'm a poli-sci major, not a math geek):
The minimum dimensions you'll be dealing with for a "a small single-story building" would be about 60' x 60' x 15' which gives you an exterior WALL AREA of 54 000 square feet. This is NOT including the roof. Just the exterior WALLS of the building, I'll get to the roof in a second.
For the sake of simplicity, and my own poor math skills, we'll assume your friend has a FLAT roof. That's another 3 600 square feet.
You're now dealing with 57 600 square feet of exterior area to cover with popcorn. Assuming that you want to be able to provide at least 6" of popcorn on top of the whole house and assuming you will have a way to KEEP the popcorn IN PLACE (i.e. not just pile it up) you're looking at 57 600' x 0.5' for a total of 28 800 CUBIC FEET of popcorn.
If you are EXTREMELY liberal in your calculations you can assume that about two bags of microwave popcorn will create one cubic foot of the stuff. Thus, 57 600 bags of microwave popcorn. I'm not quite sure how to calculate how much bulk popcorn you'd need, so I've put it in microwave bag terms to give you a rough idea.
If you actually need to PILE the popcorn up around the walls I suspect it would be reasonable to double this number for an approximate volume requirement. 57 600 CUBIC feet, or 115 200 BAGS of of popcorn is a FUCKING LOT of popcorn...
---------
Now, if you were talking about FILLING his house with popcorn...
---------
We'll assume a basic 1-bedroom single-story residence with kitchen, bathroom, living room, dining room, hallways, NOT including closets, and NOT including garage.
The layout of the house could DRASTICALLY affect the overall volume, so these are excessively rough estimates.
Bedroom: 20' x 20'
Kitchen: 20' x 20'
Living Room: 20' x 20'
Dining Room: 20' x 20'
Bathroom: 15' x 10'
Hallways: 35' x 5'
All Ceilings at 9'
(4)3600 + 1350 + 1575 = 17 325 cubic feet inside the house. Refer to my previous calculations regarding microwave bags / volume and you'll come to about 35 650 BAGS of microwave popcorn to accomplish this.
After all this, I seriously doubt you'll be able to do this on the kind of budget that I'd imagine you're on. Perhaps going for just your friend's bedroom / car / home-office would be a more reasonable thing to try?
--Nic
As of right now (0047 : 03/12/2004 GMT-8) Loki Torrent seems to be dead... Slashdot effect? or another DDos ? (or is there a difference?)
Y'know, the funniest thing is that THAT is the quote that I originally included when I submitted the story, but it got changed by the slashdot gods... to see it in the first post just cracks me up :)
--Vertigo
My only question about these things is whether or not I'm able to strap one to the roof of my Chevy Impala? :)
I mean, it's not a JATO unit, but it would still be one hell of a ride before I hit that canyon wall
Just a thought, but couldn't you get around the whole "trading" problem by simply making the keys integral to school.
I'm a third year uni. student. My school (The University of Victoria) has a regional bus pass encoded onto student cards as part of a deal struck with the local transit authority...
Despite the fact that I have a PILE of friends who would all gladly pay $100 for my student card to get the cheap bus pass, the damn thing is indespensible to me, so I take good care of it. Furthermore, if I ever go in to get a "lost" card replaced, they disable my old one on a central server before giving me a new one. There's only *EVER* one "real" student card for me floating around, and it *HAS* to be in *MY* posession for simple logistical reasons. I'm screwed without it.
Do the same for kids. Make their tokens integral somehow. (Part of the lunch program, part of class attendance, or SOMETHING...) then, if the kids lose them, you just make sure that the old tokens are remotely disabled before a new one is issued...
I really don't see why this is so difficult...
The article fails to mention how many frames per second (if that's the appropriate term) this technology would deliver... even 10x10 pixels would be helpful if delivered at 30 - 40 FPS, but almost worse than useless if delivered at 2 FPS...
Doubtful, I'm no expert, but i believe that more than just a jamming signal would be required to detonate a bomb... ... you would probably need the signal to carry some sort of data as well...